


Heroic Company

by Loligo_V



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Dancing, F/F, First Time, Fluff, Friendship, Gwent (The Witcher), Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Idiot members of the gentry, Kissing, Lesbian Sex, Post-Blood and Wine (The Witcher 3 DLC), Post-Hearts of Stone (The Witcher 3 DLC), Post-The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Swearing, Temeria (The Witcher), Ves yeeting herself into new trouble, Wyverns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:29:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23068516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loligo_V/pseuds/Loligo_V
Summary: Life gets very still once the war is over. Ves breaks the monotony by playing the hero and a certain medic is on hand to deal with the outcome. Minor spoilers for TW2, TW3 and HoS.
Relationships: Ves/Shani (The Witcher)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 33





	Heroic Company

'I don't get infections.'

'Hardly possible.'

'I've never gotten them before, and I've had worse than this.'

'That's flawed logic.'

'How??'

'” _It hasn't happened before, therefore it can't happen now” –_ that's false, now face forward and take your shirt off, please.'

'Flawed, my arse. If I can walk about with one leg sliced open, in dirty stinkin' armour for three weeks without it festerin' I can handle a little scratch like this.'

Shani put down the bottle of spirits she'd been holding and Ves could sense without seeing that she'd placed her hands on her hips.

'Is it so very bad to be helped?'

Ves grumbled and shrugged off her shirt, untying the few remaining laces to reveal the poorly cleaned blood clotted about her back, black and sticky in those areas she found hardest to reach.

'I usually treat myself.'

It was true. The blue stripes had all been as well trained as each other in treating injuries (a medic alongside would only have hampered them), and she'd never seen the point in enduring lingering hands or the sting of Roche's rough care if she needn’t.

'And now you can't reach. So, don't be so proud and let me clean this up. It might feel like a little scratch – which I know it doesn't – but any closer to your spine and you could have been in real trouble. Besides the amount of dirt caked in here.' She traced her fingers between the unmarred vertebrae further up Ves's back. 'Your whole body depends on your spine you know.'

Ves scoffed. She wasn't stupid. She knew that. And she knew that she was being unreasonable. And that Shani was right. Especially about the pain. It hurt like shit, and yes, yes she was aware what a close call it had been.

They'd been hunting. Hunting, for fuck's sake. Like some stupid whoreson fucking nobles, chasing stags round the woods on horseback in full fucking garb as though they'd not spent years of their lives shooting the damn things for food with no better preparation than a bow and arrow and a convenient tree to hide in.

But it was just this one fucking time of year, this one fucking week that ' _we all have to act like gentlemen sometimes, Ves'_ , ' _I hate the cunts too but you don't see me looking like a slapped arse about it, Ves'_ , ' _It's only a few days of court, Ves.'_ One fucking week of the year she had to mingle with Vizima's skin-crawling nobility, and it was the one fucking week that a Wyvern decided to look for meatier pickings near the country estates.

She missed the witcher, sometimes.

All horses and all men save those who’d served panicked like they'd never held a crossbow in their fucking lives and rode headlong into the shelter of the trees. Which, being on the way back towards the city and safety, and away from the much tastier looking pack of roe deer grazing a meadow some 300 yards away, might have been a brilliant idea had half of them not also thought that having recently forgotten how to use a crossbow should be no obstacle to fending off a colossal flying reptile and started shouting at the damned thing.

So, she'd done what she'd always done with fools and weaklings and got them out of the way as fast as possible. Except for one uniquely fuckwitted ginger cunt who’d just stood rooted to the centre of a fucking clearing staring at the beast like it was a fucking sunset.

There hadn't been much to do bar run, and they couldn't have outrun an angry Wyvern with those idiots. But it in the back of her head where the bad dreams lived had been the image of the carrion crows on the empty battlefields. They way that they'd swarm her as she picked her way through black and gold to search for the specks of blue armour. The tattered rags she'd wave above her head to distract them, give them a higher target. The same scraps of blue she'd watch fluttering above the other survivors as they kept the screeching birds from their heads.

So, she'd done the one useful thing she could think of in that moment, grateful to the gods for the pennant she'd so bitterly griped about carrying, and raised it high above her head, charging out through the trees and screaming.

It worked, and the Wyvern followed. The obstacle of the trees bought her just enough time to ram the flagstaff back into the holder on her saddle, slip her feet from the stirrups and launch herself hard onto the ground, where she'd lain as flat as she could in the wet grass, breath held hard as the monster flew on across the meadows after the fluttering lilies.

The broken ribs hadn't been a huge surprise – a lucky escape, if anything – but she'd been so packed with adrenaline (and no small sense of imminent death) that she hadn't noticed until the beast had taken what meat it wanted and flown that she had not entirely evaded its claws.

She came down from the high with an aching bladder, dull resignation to everything that Roche would have to say about this, and sticky blood warm against her back.

At the very least, it hadn't been her own horse she'd been riding.

Once she was back in the palace, and Roche had indeed had everything he had to say about it from where he sat in front of her with her arms wrapped tight about his waist as they rode back from where'd he'd found her, she rejected all offers of medical aid and locked herself in her rooms, requesting only hot water as she stripped off the ruined clothing.

Which Roche may also have had something to say about had he not already departed for his ritual post-near-fatal-risk-taking-on-her-behalf sulk.

She washed herself in barely a foot of water, struggling to keep her lids open and thinking about how stupid it would be now to slide unconscious under the water and drown after everything. Almost stupider than dying on a ploughing deer hunt for some fool stunt in order to save some useless lordling. Not that it wouldn't earn her some right to avoid court for the rest of the festival. And probably some stupid ornament to scoff at.

Hands shaking from fatigue, she gripped the bottle of rye from the edge of the bath and swigged it, dribbling half down her back and gritting her teeth against the sting.

What bothered her wasn't the dredged up memories of the battlefields. No, she'd accepted that pain already long ago and taken what comfort she needed for the memories on the ride back, chest to Roche's thin back in their own poor substitute for embrace and feeling the heat beneath her of the one heart that really mattered still well and beating.

No, what bothered her was that it was a stupid thing to have nearly died for. She was fine, of course she was, but as Shani said it had been damned close and she was trying not to admit that to herself. If Mulbrydale had been reckless then this was foolishness of epic proportions. But worse than the disappointment (her own and the commander's) in her idiocy was what little regard she held for her own life.

She wasn't suicidal. Far from it. The instinct to survive was buried deeper within her than any scars, but she'd never got out of thinking like a blue stripe, and a blue stripe was already counted not quite amongst the living. Not when death was a daily likelihood and you had to accept that or leave. But those days were passing and she needed to adjust. To feel happy, even, perhaps. That stupid demand. To enjoy peace like everyone else did. Not to risk this hard-won life for a moment of heroism against a monster no normal human could ever hope to kill.

So, she stupored in the water until it was cold, trying her best to rinse the wound clean by pressing towels to the side of the tub and rubbing her stinging back against them. She dried herself, wrapped a clean bandage around her middle and fell fast asleep on her stomach.

She was woken in the dim evening by polite knocking on the door. Disorientated and aching, she pulled on a clean shirt and leggings and went to answer, only half noticing the shirt was laced up wrong. Dim light from the candles lining the corridor illuminated the rug and flickered in a halo around the red hair of the medic in the doorway.

She'd rode in two days before, there for the autumn festivities, at Thaler's behest. Ves was equal parts amused and sorry to see the spy's rough edges turn soft around the young woman. It was sweet, and gentle, and Ves knew from the start that Shani was probably about as romantically interested in him as she was in her medical kit. Less, probably. But it was sweet, anyhow, whatever kind of comfort it was that they brought to each other.

And now the redhead was knelt behind her on the blue quilt, their backs to the fire to illuminate the deep cavity in her back. Shani had insisted on lighting it. The warmth was nice, and the presence of another, softer body. The girl had been attending parties the past few days and smelt of perfume. Hard to credit that soft, clean hair and the scent of cloves to a life spent amongst entrails and death. Fingers hard from work, but not much more calloused than a seamstress’s when they brought a hot sponge to her back.

'I've washed already.'

'And poorly.' She could hear a gentle, almost teasing smile as Shani spoke. 'Quiet, and let me help else I'll have Roche to answer to.'

'I'll be the one taking the shouting, don't worry.' Ves didn't know why she objected so much to the help, was fully aware that she was being childish but could only seem to try and redeem that with more petulance.

Though, in truth, she rather thought she did know that problem. Problems. Some of it. And none of it would have been so bad, so childish, so awkward if her head hadn't been so thoroughly fucked with by the long months of peace that she'd never quite adjusted to.

Ves'd been the only woman in the stripes, only one in the Temerian forces not sat with a pen in her hand for that matter, and though she'd met strong women before, that was always sorceresses, dragons, trained princesses. Ciri, the child of the elder blood. People who'd been born to be strong. Gifted. Not that it detracted from their greatness, far from it. She adored and respected all of them. But she'd never needed question her own abilities in the face of women who chance alone had granted abnormal power. Hell, even then she'd never bowed or broken to Triss, for all the fire she could conjure. She was the only one she knew who'd come from nothing and become as she was, and she was so used to that pedestal that she'd never even had to think about it or consider herself conceited.

Now there was this soft, beautiful, sweetly scented thing, fresher than her from the gore of battle, but still kind, gentle and singing. Not bitter, angry, and broken. She'd never since meeting Roche had cause to feel less than she should be and now she felt as though, mad dog that she was, she must be lacking in some strength that this soft-voiced medic still possessed.

That was the preferable option. That disgusting self-pity. Roche would have clipped her round the ear for it, she was sure. Worse was what she felt must surely be the crux of it; that she had never had to take orders from a woman in her life and now that it was happening she was turning out to be just as bad as every soldier who'd ever ignored her commands.

There was a sudden harsh stinging and she hissed, body tensing up.

' _Ow!!'_ The _fuck_ you're using??'

'Surgical spirits. Probably somewhat stronger than whatever hooch you lads normally sterilise with...not that I'm saying you can't take your drink!' Ves could still hear her smiling and felt the warm pad of a thumb rubbing at her shoulder to relieve the tension as the stinging began to dissipate.

'I'm going to stitch this – normally I'd give you beggartick to keep the pain away, given the option while we're safe like this, but would that be stressful for you?'

Yes. Yes it would. Ves grimaced at how well Shani understood. No, no she would not like to be half-asleep on her belly and vulnerable after being _looked after._ Not even by a friend. Roche maybe, or some boys who were dead now, but not this bossy, kind, disgustingly reasonable young woman. Who knew already that she needed to feel every needle prick to make right the idiocy of the day. Who needed some kind of comeuppance for nearly throwing it all away.

'I'd like to be awake, please. Fully.'

'Have a drink then, and bite down on this, it's a big cut and I'll not stop once I've started.'

It hurt, but it was quick, and Shani’s hand was firm and steady. Ves heard her own breath, shallow from the pain in her ribs, and Shani’s behind her, calm and barely audible over the crackling of the fire. She bit down against the stabbing pains of the needle and her cracked bones, closed her eyes and focussed on the rhythm of the other woman’s breathing.

They sat in silence for a moment once it was done, Ves knelt between Shani’s legs, the room warm and shadowy in those places the flame’s light didn’t reach, smelling of woodsmoke and hazy from the rye. Exhausted and hurting, it didn’t take much drink to dull the world.

Shani stood after a minute, and Ves got ready to grumble out a thank you whilst the medic packed her bag and left her to her sweet sleep, but the redhead only put another log on the fire and took a bottle from her bag.

More cleaning up, spectacular. But Shani poured the liquid into the iron pot hung over the flames for boiling the morning’s tea and crouched on the hearth to stir it gently. Ves turned herself around on the bed, grunting with the effort, and surveyed disapprovingly. Shani’s face was pinking up from the heat of the fire, and the light shone through the edges of her hair. The room began to smell sweet and fragrant. Most people would have gotten a lump of ash thrown at them for using her fireplace like that in front of her, but hurling things at someone who’d just sewn your back up immaculately seemed ungrateful even for her, unasked for though the favour may have been.

‘Will you explain some of these to me?’ Shani asked, pouring the contents of the pot into two clay mugs that she seemed to have brought herself (since Ves only owned one which was made of tin and lined with stains dating back to the reign of Foltest). She pressed one into Ves’s hands and sat back on the quilt. ‘If it’s not too intrusive.’ She gestured to the tattoos sprawled across Ves’s torso. Some lilies, some skulls. Some things less obvious.

Raising the mug dubiously to her lips, Ves realised that she was still naked save for her leggings. Well, she was hardly shy and certainly in no hurry to be pulling clothes back on over her smarting back in the comfort of her own bedchamber. Certainly not for someone who she hadn’t asked to come in in the first place. Besides which, Shani was a woman and a doctor, and it was much too pleasant to feel the flames on her bare skin, the world’s edges softening as she sipped the drink, eyelids drooping. It was scalding, and sweet, and almost as alcoholic as the bottle of rye she’d left abandoned by the pillow.

‘From back in the stripes.’ Ves murmured around the lip of the mug, steam curling in front of her eyes. ‘I think most of them you can figure out. Some we was just bored, thought somethin’d be funny, some mean more, some mean nothing. Don’t remember getting that one.’ She removed one hand from the mug to point at what looked like a snail above the waist of her leggings, partially obscured by bruising.

‘Were you at sea?’ Shani gestured to messily drawn anchor just above Ves’s right elbow, fingers hovering just above the skin.

‘No. We chartered a ship for a few days headin’ up the Pontar. I ate some bad fish and puked up over the side. Lads reckoned I was seasick an’ gave me this for bein’ the worst mariner on the continent.’

Shani grinned over her drink, hair flopping down over her face. ‘Very heroic.’

‘Heroism isn’ such a great thing.’ Ves looked down at her chest, livid purple and green.

‘You saved someone today, and this will heal up. It was brave, what you did.’

‘Brave’s nothing to do with it. I’m a soldier, I act. Fools like him probably better off eaten anyway.’

‘I was there when they arrived back. Heard the story. He’s very grateful. Looks like you might have some more honours to put up with.’

‘And probably another bloody marriage proposal, to boot.’ Ves snorted.

‘Lady Ves, watching over your vast estate for attacking monsters.’

She laughed in earnest then, short and barking, and then held her ribs in pain. ‘That’ll be the day. And I suppose Roche’ll come and live with me in peaceful retirement?’

Shani grinned and didn’t answer, the pair of them sat in silence, Ves still gently holding her ribcage.

‘Must happen to you a lot.’ She mused.

‘Hmm?’ Shani stood and poured more liquor out of the bottle to the pot.

‘I reckon every other man you wrap up must be begging for you to settle down with him.’

‘Not a lot of romance in sawing legs off.’ Shani smiled, then squatted by the fire. ‘But yes, some men I’ve been healing have asked me to return home with them.’

‘And you don’t want to?’

‘No more than you do.’ Shani was suddenly sharp. ‘I might not be elite forces but I’ve still chosen my path.’ She stirred the pot, back to the room.

‘…I’m sorry…wasn’ callin’ you soft.’ Ves lay down on her side, voice thick and sleepy.

‘No….no, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped. It was a fair question…I just hear it a lot, that’s all.’

‘Yeah, me too, variations of…reckon half the palace is waiting for me n’ the commander to announce our wedding date.’

That turned Shani back round, eyebrows shooting up. ‘What? I didn’t think you-‘

‘I don’. Never have. Neither of us have. We’re family. Try tellin’ the court that.’ She grinned from the shadows she’d fallen into. ‘He’s never taken to asking me if I’ve found anyone though, reckon he might slap me for it if I ever did.’ She smiled trying to imagine ever having a discussion about romance with Roche.

‘I wish my mother were the same. She’s rather…disappointed in my lack of progress on that front.’ Shani’s brows knit together and she frowned at the hearth.

‘Havin’ an accomplished scholar for a daughter not enough for her?’ Ves was bleary from the drink and back in her comfort zone now that the other woman was showing some vulnerability.

‘I’m not sure she understands that. She’s proud of me still, but…impatient.’

‘Fuck it.’ Ves‘s lids were heavy and she felt herself already starting to dream. ‘You don’t need – ah fuck.’ The mug had slipped from her hand and slung the last of the liquid across the quilt.

‘Leave it.’ Shani smiled demurely, back in care-mode before she could help herself and relocating the empty mug to the hearth. ‘There’s barely any spilled, you best get under the blankets before you fall asleep on top of them.’

Head too thick to argue, and dreams already starting to play out behind her eyes, Ves knelt to pull back the covers and slid under on her stomach. She was already halfway gone when Shani threw the blue patchwork back over her bare shoulder, and only just registered the sound of the redhead adding logs to the fire before she sank into dreams.

* * *

The world wasn’t quite light behind the curtains when she woke early as ever, unable to kick years of habit. For a moment she stayed still, eyes closed, swimming in the feeling of soft, crisp linen against her face, dragging her lips across the fabric and marvelling as she always did that her life had come to contain such luxuries. She moved her arms against the sheets slowly. Slowly enough that she could feel the soft hairs catching against the threads. A shaft of grey light illuminated the small patch of drool on her pillow and the birds, though quieter in the city in a way that she’d never quite get used to, had started up in the oak outside the window.

Her back ached badly and breathing hurt. After some while of lying there, the frustration of simply lying still and hurting became too much and she slowly extricated herself from the covers. The fire had long since died, though there was still a gentle warmth in the large clay hearth. The mugs were still there from the night before. _Hm, I’m expecting another visit then, I suppose…_

She pulled on a loose shirt and leggings and padded down the hall to use the lavatory. Returning to her room, she saw the bath still full of filthy water from the day before. She let the tub drain, still not quite used to such an act. Having a tub of your own wasn’t so unusual, but not one that would simply drain itself into the sewers. Though it would’ve have been quite a walk to find anywhere appropriate to have chucked the water.

With the one definite task for the day done, she set the fire and filled the cooking pot (clean, she noted, nodding in approval at Shani’s respect for her things). She took dried sage and lemongrass from a pot on the hearth and added them to the boiling water. Removing one of Shani’s earthenware mugs to a discreet place behind the pots, she filled her own tin mug, stained and scratched with years of faithful service and drew open the curtains.

This was her morning routine and had been since summer. Wake early, make a drink and sit and watch the outside world from the wooden chair by her window. Then, out to the training yard for exercise, sometimes alone, sometimes with the others. Sometimes with an admiring, gawking group of new recruits who hadn’t seen a woman in combat since they tried pulling on girls’ hair as schoolboys.

Though today was probably not a day for hard exercise, she thought, plucking leaves from the steaming mug with her fingers and flicking them into the fire, listening to the hiss as they dried up. _Wouldn’t be surprised to find that girl waiting out there to send me back in anyway. I hope she’s not about to bring me breakfast_.

The sun was up now, and she supposed she ought to wait around on some summons or other. Some stupid cunt bound to be thankful. To think there were five days left of the festival. Five days of shit, and one good drink on the day of the lilies once it was all over. _If madame is letting me get drunk, of course_.

Two mugs of tea and a few more notches in the wall panel no one had yet dared to tell her was not for knife practice later, Ves gave up waiting for either unwanted breakfast or summonses, and made to find out for herself what her ordeal was to be for the day.

Dressed as sensibly (by her standards) as was possible without anything rubbing against her back, Ves made to the large central pantry rooms that served the higher-ranking officers’ living quarters. A vast masonry stove kept a steady heat for cooking on, should they not wish to ask anything of the servants, and since the advent of the Nilfgaardian plumbing provided a constant supply of warm water for the inhabitants. The pantry was always open, and more often than not the men and her would cook for themselves, far too used to it by now to start relying on servants.

‘Ves, what the fuck are you doing?’

Roche sat on a bench in the corner behind a cloud of blue smoke. Ves had long since developed an internal scale of how worried the commander was based on how far she could see though this cloud, and it was looking like yesterday hadn’t quite worn off him yet.

‘I’ve heard nothing of where to be today, and I’m hungry. I’ll be ready to train again soon. My ribs are cracked, so I’m leaving it for now.’

‘I know your ploughing ribs are cracked. Little ginger girl told us. Your presence is not required today.’

‘It’s what?’

‘Not required. Or wanted. Piss off beck to bed, Ves, your no bloody use to me cringing around the place in that state all day.’

This was a surprise. Something went cold inside Ves.

‘I’m fine, Roche. I’ve had worse than this and I can still be present for the festivities.’

‘And you want that, do you?’ He stood and with the smoke gone she saw the shadow of a wry smile and relaxed immediately. ‘Count yourself fucking lucky, some of us have no excuse and will be accepting honours on your behalf today.’

‘…You…what?’ That he got to watch Ves suffer even worse through the stuffy clothes and endless speeches than he did was the only joy the commander found in court anymore.

‘You heard me. You’re in no fit state to be appearing after your ‘heroic deeds’, or so I’ve been informed by a certain medic.’ The twitch of Roche’s lips around the stem of his pipe would have made Ves hurl a plate at him, had she not been too busy gawking. ‘Now take that look off your face, feed yourself and go find some way to make yourself useful without fucking your body up.’

‘But wha –‘

‘I want you able to be doing 50 press-ups again by the time this shitshow is over.’ He plucked his overcoat from the bench and slung it over his arm, turning his head to call over his shoulder as he left. ‘You know I really always thought it’d be your chest you got torn up!’

There was a bark of laughter as a plate shattered above the doorframe and Ves fumed by the heater.

She was still fuming 10 minutes later, leant on the warmth of the heater wolfing scrambled eggs and rye bread when Split, one of her old partisan ‘cavebrothers’ walked in with a scroll of expensive looking parchment tied with velvet blue ribbon. The parchment stank of something costly that was probably labelled ‘masculine’ in some overly carpeted Oxenfurt barbers.

‘Per’aps you could use it for your hair?’ Split grinned, scarred mouth laughing as she flicked the ribbon at his face. ‘Well?’

‘Well _what_ , Split?’

‘Got asked to give you that by a very…handsome and delicate young man I heard you helped out o’ a spot yesterday. Seemed very put out not to be able to present it personally, ‘e did…or maybe ‘e wants you to tie ‘im up with that thing? I s’pose he must like tough women.’

‘Shame whoever cut your lip didn’t stop you talking.’ She seethed, kicking at his shins and wincing.

‘Isn’t it? Now, tell us what ‘e says!’

Normally, suitors’ poor attempts would be a piece of theatre for Ves’s boys, and her grand reading of the letters to a drunk audience was a favourite post-training entertainment. Today, however, was shitty and she ached, so she just chucked the parchment at him and got back to her eggs.

‘Oh? My turn, is it? Well…’ _My Gallant Lady’…_ ooo, you’ve never been gallant before! Let’s see….’ _Nothing I can ever do could truly convey my gratitude or awe at the great service you did me yesterday. It is a memory I shall treasure until my final days on…_ ’ Oh Melitele Ves, here’s a cracker: ‘ _However if I were to meet my end on that fateful field I should rest content having seen such an awe-inspiring sight – ‘_ Do you think he means your shirt or the dragon?’

‘It was a Wyvern, you stupid whoreson.’

‘Don’t tell him that. Now…” _I am forever indebted”…_ same shit…” _and I regret only that I could not say these things to you in person before you are celebrated in full honour in the palace gardens. Though I understand that your wounds are great” –_ Shame he can’t see you stuffing your fat face – “ _and that you must need recuperation. Could it be too much then, for a devoted soul to ask, once your injuries permit, may I meet with you in order to show my admiration and gratitude as well as I would like?”_ If you catch my drift, Ves.’ He wiggled his one and a half eyebrows. “ _Yours faithfully, and ever’”–_ Gods, he’s keen – “ _Count Conris de Verdon III.”_ Ooooo look at that Ves, you gallant lady, you, ‘is crest’s got a little duck on it!’

‘It’s a goose.’

‘Terrifying. …Ah! So you _did_ pay some attention?’

‘I’ve read enough correspondence to know the crests of every powerful family from here to Sodden.’

‘You do get a lot of correspondence, right enough.’

‘Correspondence for Roche, Split.’

‘Ohhh are they after him too now? I’m getting jealous.’

‘You’re an arse.’

‘And you’ve got a face on like one, don’t be mardy just ‘cause you acted like a twat. You still well enough to throw knives?’

So, she passed a pleasant hour in the saloon, thrashing Split soundly before he took his leave for duty and Ves, who’d almost stopped noticing the ache, was left bored again. It wasn’t a feeling she was used too, and with almost everyone she knew either on duty or attending the festivities, she was getting more target practice than even she cared for.

Nor, what with it seeming that her arse was being excused by someone, would it be the best idea to go wandering about the gardens. She’d not been awake long enough to want to sleep and so settled for a day of cleaning until that turned out to be too painful and she leaned out her bedroom window with her lips clasped around one of Roche’s many purloined smoking pipes.

By the end of the day her armour was polished, her blades sharpened, and her lilies badge re-stitched neatly onto her jacket. There’d been no sign of anyone else since morning, breathing was a bitch and she was thoroughly fed up.

She’d hardly done anything to warrant bathing, but in a bid for activity once the sky had grown dark she went to the stove to take water. Carrying the buckets made the pain even worse, and it ended up a very shallow bath, but she succeeded and was sat moodily in the cooling water watching the firelight flicker on the ceiling when there was a knock on the door.

‘It’s open.’ She called, knowing no one else who’d knock so politely. Shani stuck her head round the door slowly and then entered with her kit bag and another bottle.

‘I’m alright now, I can deal with it from here,’

‘I know you can, but it’s still best to have proper cleaning. I know something of monster injuries thanks to our mutual friend and even a non-venomous creature likely has some rather unpleasant life living under its talons, so I’d like to make sure that this won’t fester. Besides, I have something to dull the pain.’ Ves didn’t miss the slight whist in the other girl’s voice when she mentioned the witcher. _Ploughin’ hell, not her as well._

‘I can handle the pain.’

‘Have it your way. Now, do you mind me removing the dressing?’

‘I can do it.’ Ves grumbled, still facing away from Shani and the door, and began to unwind the damp fabric. Truth be told, it did smell worse than her dressings usually did, especially given the quality of work done on it the day before.

‘Hmm. Better than yesterday. Just.’

‘What are you doing?’ demanded Ves as Shani filled the pot with water and set it over the fire.

‘I’d rather get some properly hot water to wash this out, and I’ll brew something for the pain in case you change your mind.’

‘Not whatever you gave me last night?’

‘Oh?’

‘What was that? Knocked me right out…’

‘Just something to help relax…rum, honey, some spices. I drink it sometimes to fall asleep when my studies keep me awake…though I don’t think you needed much help to pass out last night. How are your ribs?’

Once the water was hot, Shani mixed honey with beggartick and left the drink to brew beside the tub within reach of Ves’s arm and without further mention.

There was a sting as a hot sponge met Ves’s back, gently but firmly dabbing at the wound. The water was scalding almost, but Shani wrung the sponge out as matter-of-factly as if it was cool while she worked.

‘Oops.’ The fire had spit suddenly, causing Shani to jump and drop the sponge into the bathwater where she plunged a hand in to retrieve it. Ves felt a twinge between her legs as the other woman’s hand brushed her hip. ‘Sorry. This is going to sting now, okay?’ Ves smelt alcohol as Shani filled a dry cloth with it and reached for the mug without thinking. Shani did not react when she held the concoction to her chest and sipped at it while the harsh alcohol was applied to her back.

‘Okay, that’s done now. Whenever you’re ready to get out we’ll dry it properly and rebandage.’ It suddenly hit Ves that she had just allowed this bossy little so-and-so to bathe her and she stood up abruptly. When her vision stopped spinning and she looked around Shani had her back turned as though personal boundaries had suddenly become relevant. Ves wrapped her towel about her and pulled her chair over to the hearth to sit and dry off by the fire rather than subject her torso to anymore friction that day.

There was silence except for the fire crackling. Shani was knelt over her bag, taking a long time over tidying up and sorting the bandages.

‘You told them I couldn’t be out today?’ Ves asked, finally.

‘Yes. That you were in no fit state to be present at court for the ceremonies.’

Honestly, she probably wasn’t. But she’d have gone anyway and faced it and ached and suffered through the whole shitty ordeal because that’s just what you do. You harden up and keep on. So, Shani had taken the choice away from her so that she could avoid the ceremonies without having to count it as a failure. That girl was annoyingly clever.

‘I hope you found enough to keep you occupied during the day. Did you sleep?’ _For fuck’s sake._

‘No. I’ve been busy enough.’

‘That’s good to hear.’ Shani had come to crouch behind her. Ves swivelled in the chair so that her back was exposed and lowered the towel to her waist to allow the medic to start her work. Now that she was more lucid than the previous night, she was alert to the touches. Slim fingers rubbing salve oh-so-gently onto the cut, brushing against her chest and her sides as they wrapped the bandages carefully about her.

‘There. That’s done. I’ll be back again tomorrow night.’

‘Thank you.’ Ves nodded stiffly. Shani began to pack up, and Ves watched the flames. She was awake still, far too awake, and the thought of spending any more time staring at the ceiling made her want to slam her head against the tub. ‘Do you play gwent?’

‘Hm?’ Shani looked up from her bag. ‘I do, a little.’

‘You want to play a few rounds? If you’re not wanted back at the parties, that is.’

‘I’m excused on account of important duties with the military.’ Shani smiled, and put the bag down.

‘Eh? Oh. Right. I have three decks. I play northern realms. You can pick one of the other two if you don’t have a deck on you.’

‘Not in my medical bag, no.’

‘Skellige or monsters, then?’

‘Monsters.’ Shani smiled. ‘A drink?’

‘Yes, if it’s what we had last night.’

‘The very same.’

When the drink was hot, Shani poured some into the mugs, using Ves’s tin mug rather than the clay one, and sat down on the bed, turning her head when Ves threw off the towel and pulled her loose shirt and underclothes back on.

Three games later, Shani changed decks to Skellige declaring that monsters was only really effective when ‘your opponent doesn’t know what cards you have and add _excessive_ biting frosts to their own deck’. After that, games were mostly decided by whether or not Ves managed to draw Thaler in the first round.

‘What’s that?’ Shani asked after the 6th game, point to Ves’s close combat row, at the scrawled-on pair of clasped hands on her own card.

‘The link. I added it. I’m was a blue stripe too, so I added the link to my card.’

‘Have you been adding that to your score the whole time??’

‘Depends how many other blue stripes are down.’

‘That’s cheating!’

‘They were my brothers!’

‘You only have 21 points on that row!’

‘You only have 13.’

‘That’s not the point.’

‘…Do you miss them?’ Shani asked after a few rounds of silence once Ves had finally agreed to play by the conventional rules.

‘Who?’

‘Your old unit…you said they were your brothers…I’m sorry if that’s too personal.’

‘They were. That’s how it is. You become family. It’s also how it is that you expect the worst. We all knew what we were doing. How it happened in the end, though. That will stay with me. I felt guilty for a long time afterwards, guilty and angry. Nearly got myself killed because of it; Roche talked me back to sense. But they’d be having none of it if they ever saw me brooding on it, so I don’t.’

‘You and Roche seem restless here. Do you ever get used to the war ending?’

‘I don’t know that myself. It’s not been long enough, but no, I don’t think we will. I worry about Roche, but he’s changing. The witcher had a lot to do with it, I think. Any measure, I don’t worry about him so much as I did.’

‘For you, though?’

‘Yes, it’s hard. I’ve never been in one place for so long since I met Roche. Never been so safe. I’ve never had anything like…’ She gestured around the room. ‘…this. I’ve known poverty, imprisonment, and war. And now I save Counts from getting themselves eaten.’

‘Very impressively, though.’ Shani stood and poured the last of the liquid from the pot into their mugs. ‘I understand though. I thought of staying in Oxenfurt and studying before. Ended up in Kaedwen not long after. It’s hard to get used to life being easy.’

‘It is.’

‘And I’ve won.’

‘Whoreson. One more round?’

* * *

Ves’s next morning followed the same pattern as the last, only she waited scarcely longer than it took for the first shafts of light to make their way across the ceiling before giving up on waiting for summons and proceeding for the day’s scolding. Which didn’t appear, Roche having apparently decided that abject boredom was the perfect punishment for nearly getting skewered by a Wyvern and that she ought to continue on the assumption that no action was required of her until some time, probably in a few days, when the door to her quarters would be almost knocked down by a very excited commander very early in the morning bright and ready for some fantastic new physical activity that was bound to set her healing back at least three days. But that was life.

It was less painful to swallow down the bread and honey than it had been the day before, though her back still stung. She wondered what was going on back at the celebrations and if Roche had started any fights yet. If Shani was there now, visiting the market stalls that packed the squares with their all their exotic imports brought about by the new trade agreements. If she was wearing lilies in her hair and being carted around half the city by Thaler to enjoy the day as much as possible before more dancing and drinking and being bored to death by the gentry started.

‘Mmm – Madam? Miss?’ Ves turned her head to the door. ‘…sir?’

‘Yes, what is it?’ New errand boy. They never were sure how to address her. She wasn’t entirely sure either and besides; it was more fun to let them flounder.

‘There’s a visitor for you, m – uhh, he’s in the courtyard.’

_Well, shit._

‘Alright, I’ll come out.’

The courtyard was still in shadow this time of morning, save for one harsh bar of light passing in through the gap between buildings. The air smelt sharp and cold, and behind the sounds of the collared doves up in the eves there was already a hum of music from the palace gardens.

It was not one visitor, but several. Or rather, one rather embarrassingly well-dressed visitor and a small entourage of servants holding something rather bulky and large beneath a veil of blue cloth. The edges of the cloth were brown with dried blood.

‘My lady.’ He bowed. _Fucking hell._ ‘I am sorry to disturb you from your rest, as I’m sure you must need it…ah, may I enquire as to how your injuries are healing?’ He was young. Younger than her, perhaps. The hair on his jaw was soft and wispy, and he squinted a little as though in need of eyeglasses but not willing to compromise his face for it.

‘Count de Verdon.’ She nodded. ‘I am healing well, thank you.’

‘I am glad to hear it, and so very sorry and humbled that you came to be so hurt on my account. I cannot thank you enough.’

‘I only do my job, sir.’

He smiled at her as though she was some kind of gentle prophet. ‘But to do it as you do, and at such a time, why…I don’t know that I’ve ever met a single soldier who could have acted as quickly and as selflessly as you did’

Ves could see this might be going to go on for a while and made a pointed face of discomfort whilst placing a hand on her ribs.

‘Ah! My lady! I’m sorry, sorry, truly. I do not mean to cause you further distress, only…only to show you how truly grateful I am….I shall be brief, yes….you see, after our return to the castle I sought the help of a witcher-‘ _Ah, that explained Roche’s good mood, then._ ‘-very fortunate that such a man was passing by the capital, but I digress. Suffice to say, the beast shall never, ever cause you harm again, and has atoned for its crimes against you. I have brought you this…as a token of your victory, and of my thanks.’ He beckoned, and the men behind him shuffled forward to lay at her feet, what turned out, once the cloth had been removed, to be the vast, stinking head of the Wyvern.

Ves wasn’t often speechless, but at that moment the only appropriate thing to do seemed to be to simply stare at the young Count, eyes and forehead screwed up and mouth hanging open. Thankfully, she supposed, for Temeria’s sake, he interpreted her awe at the sheer fucking balls on him as awe at the wonderful gift and bent to kiss her fingers before asking her where she would like the beast’s head to be taken, or, perhaps, would the lady like it to be taken to the finest taxidermist in Vizima to create a wallmount worthy of a hero?

In the end she simply asked that it be left round the back of the stables for the time being as it was certainly _not_ going to be taken inside. If Geralt was in the city then she may as well return it to him on the sly and hope that he sold the parts on somewhere a little further afield.

After thanking the Count as graciously as she could for the gift and finally managing to extricate herself from his simpering, she returned to her room, almost as exhausted as if she’d actually been training.

As she took matches from the mantelpiece, a sudden twinge of chest pain caused her to jolt and knock Shani’s clay mug off. She caught it before it had chance to smash, and paid for it with another few minutes of gritting her teeth against the pain of the sudden movement, and then replaced it, grumbling idly to herself about how it was too fucking impractical and bound to get broken at some point. She’d dropped her tin mug off the roof of the cave more than once whilst keeping lookout and it had barely dented.

Later in the day, she found the errand boy again and asked him to search the ceremonies for a white-haired witcher and inform him that there was something useful to him behind the officers’ stables.

No sign of Roche, Geralt, or anyone else for the rest of the afternoon and Ves was beginning to put off taking a bath simply for fear of having nothing left to do afterwards. It was a little frivolous to be drawing a bath every day when she’d not even broken a sweat, but she wanted the stench of the wound to be as palatable as was achievable before Shani arrived.

Only, it was long since dark, and she was dry, dressed and two mugs of hooch down when she finally decided that the party must have taken precedent, stripped to her underthings and lay down a dry towel on the sheets so that no blood or other unpleasantness from her now unbandaged back would soil the linen if she rolled over.

It must have already been some while when she woke to the sound of knocking, as the fire was down the last few glowing embers. Cross at the lateness, and at being woken – or possibly at having been put aside for the sake of others’ company - she stoked the embers and threw on more logs before going to unlatch the door.

Behind it, Shani was looking harried and apologetic, face a little pink from wine and carrying a large leather bag.

‘Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you late on – ‘

Ves smiled dryly and opened the door fully to let the redhead in.

‘There was an accident at the palace, stupid _bloody_ men.’ Ves’s ire dimmed when she saw that the other woman was even more annoyed at the hold-up than her, and, despite the flush on her cheeks, had not simply been waiting on a potential appearance from everybody’s favourite monster-killer.

‘The _idiot_ Count di Vernon, Vergen, whatever his name is saw fit to challenge one of the other men who’d been on that hunt – _halfwits –_ to a horse race about the gardens – the _gardens,_ for Melitele’s sake – and it was only a few of us with them and Thaler thought it would be _hilarious_ to encourage them both and, anyway, Count di Vixon’s just received four lines of stitches across his face courtesy of one of Madame La Valette’s more spiteful items of shrubbery. _Ach.’_ She bounced up from where she’d been digging in the bag, holding a pot of salve and a clean roll of bandages, seeming much brighter for the rant. ‘You see the trouble you cause?’

Ves grinned. ‘Still pleased with me for saving him?’ She turned around and knelt on the floor by the fire. ‘What have you got planned for me in there then?’

‘What? Oh, this.’ Shani put water to heat over the fire and nearly knocked her own mug of the mantelpiece. ‘The Count was very concerned about how the injury might affect his face, understandably enough, and so when I told him I had something to help with the scarring he took the whole lot. As I was already wary of disturbing you so late I just grabbed my field kit and brought it straight here rather than waste time rooting through it for the right things.’

‘It didn’t take so long to find.’

‘No, well.’ Ves twisted her head back briefly to see the other woman blush a little as she took clean towels and set to gently dabbing about the wound.

‘I hadn’t been asleep long, and besides, I could do with something happening, even if it is just getting cleaned up.’

‘Rest isn’t suiting you well then?’ She could hear the tease in Shani’s voice.

‘It is not. Especially now that I know that being shut up in here isn’t the only way I can avoid the Count anymore.’

‘You must be used to it, from the military?’ Shani very gently dried around the cut before Ves felt the sudden tingling coldness of fingers rubbing salve on her back. ‘Surely the amount of specialist work you had involved a great deal of waiting?’

‘It did, at times. Waiting on orders, waiting until it was safe to return home. Endless watches and lookouts. We were stuck in the same shitty fucking inn by the Aedirni border for ten fucking days once waiting for the road to come back out from underneath the Pontar so we could get a cart through.’

‘Four years ago, in mid-winter, wasn’t it?’

‘How do you know that??’

‘Those rains hit half the north. I was working in Tretogor at the time, the sewers had overflowed and contaminated the water supply. It was a grim couple of months.’

‘Makes ten days in an inn sound luxury, when you say that.’

‘Well I wasn’t bored, at least.’

Ves snorted. ‘Me n’ the lads used to carve things, sell ‘em in the taverns for our drinking money, or the boy’s’d take ‘em home for their women. Sometimes it was just nice bits of wood, or deer bones, but sometimes we’d shoot a good stag for food and carve out necklaces and such from its horns. Keeps you from falling asleep on lookout.’

‘Anything you kept?’

‘No…I wasn’t so good at it as some of the lads. I can make things that work, but not things that look pretty. A few times when we were in the caves near Oxenfurt there’d be huge fish washed up dead. Fresh ones smelt too bad to go near – and there were drowners – but sometimes there’d be skeletons and the boys’d take the teeth and carve beautiful things on them.’

‘Whales.’

‘What?’

‘Whales. Not fish. They’re like…they’re more like cows than fish. I used to see them swim by Oxenfurt sometimes, I think they were lost up the river.’

‘If you say so.’ Ves wasn’t sure what animal Shani had seen but these things had definitely _not_ been cows. But she had had an idea. ‘Do you have any more of that drink?’

‘I left the bottle last night, remember?’

‘…Could you heat it?’

Shani pursed her lips in false annoyance, eyes twinkling, and once she had finished her ministrations turned to the table by the doorway where the liquor bottle had been left the night before. Which was as much time as Ves needed to find what she was looking for in Shani’s field bag and slide it silently as far under the bed as she could reach.

‘Are you okay?’ Shani had noticed Ves pulling her arm back out.

‘Yes. Just looking for the rye I left the other night, but it’s here.’ She bent round and retrieved the half empty bottle of spirits from beneath the bedside cabinet.

‘You think we need that as well?’

‘Have to celebrate a few days without Count de Verdon at court, don’t we?’

* * *

The next day Ves didn’t bother waiting on orders at all, took her breakfast leisurely over a heated debate with Split on whether or not she was going to get fat if she spent much more time recovering, then took herself and Shani’s bonesaw out to the stables.

Geralt had not been yet, and the Wyvern head still lay under its canvas, flies buzzing in its already empty eye sockets. She hoped Geralt would turn up to claim the trophy back, or there’d be words from Roche about keeping festering corpses in the palace grounds. She took a rag from inside and tied it around her mouth against the stink of the rotting lizard and took the saw to one of its vast horns. It was thick, harder than cow horn or even those whalefish bones, and hurt her ribs and back badly enough to cut through that she returned inside halfway through to retrieve her hooch to numb the sting.

It took a good half hour or more of sawing before one of the horns was off, and that was more than ample for her needs. Best save the rest for the witcher. It felt good to have moved a little again, even if it was painful.

Sat on the steps to the courtyard, she took the saw and her own knife (sharp as ever after the days with nothing else to do) to the horn, rag still tied about her face against the reek of bone dust. The horn itself was gorgeous – dark and glossy, ridged all the way along with uneven patterns giving it the look of the onyx jewellery that was pedalled at the city’s market stalls.

The sun was warm despite the briskness of the air, and the sounds of music and shouting floated over the roof shingles. It smelt of autumn, albeit Vizima autumn, and she found herself drifting easily back into the meditative state of alert concentration so familiar from sitting at lookout. She was so focussed on her work that she didn’t notice she was hungry until the sun had moved off the courtyard, and, loathe to spend even more time cooped up in her room, she brought out a thick coat, food, and her tin mug of hot, sweet tea to continue as long as the light lasted.

* * *

Shani was round again in the evening, and the next. Ves spent her days sat on the step carving and bickering with the boys or perched on sacks behind the stable doors to shelter from the drizzle. She didn’t hurt all that much less than she had three days ago, and figured she would for a while, but the worst of the fatigue was gone, and the gash on her back no longer smelt when she peeled off her bandages before bathing for Shani’s visit. She was in a good mood, too, better than in a while. The relief of not having to turn up to court, she told herself, and a healthy bit of jeopardy in this time of hard-won peace to get her brain working again. She chipped crude sprays of rowan berries into the wyvern horn.

The evenings were warm, the fire better stacked than when she spent them alone, and the heady woodsmoke and alcohol brought back memories of late nights falling asleep in front of tavern hearths. Shani came round with her medical kit and they drank, teased gently, played gwent and shared stories of their travels. Ves woke on the second morning swaddled in her quilt with no memory of having put herself under it before dropping off.

On the second night, Shani informed Ves that she was wanted back at the main palace the next day for the final part of the Lilies Festival, the Day of the Lilies. The rest of the hunting and drinking and hawking of imported trinkets had been the run-up to this, a decadent week of parties thrown to sweeten the freed Temeria’s attitude to its new rulers, and to parade the many boons of the new trade routes. Roche griped endlessly that it had better be limited to shorter celebrations once the unrest came to settle.

This final day was to be capped by a ball in the main palace, which Ves had never had too much hope of getting out of, if she was honest. There was very little scope for good drinking games with her boys, and entirely too much for fawning Counts, though knowing now that she’d attend at least one meal with the redheaded medic rather than just enjoying her sweet-scented and well-dressed company afterwards made it a little less awful. It would be good to see Roche again too, if she was honest.

* * *

Blue and black. Silver and gold. Red of the autumn fruits and roasted meat. Velvet, silk, glinting embroidery and dark, expensive scents. Lilies pouring from every available corner. Soft calfskin shoes turning on the tiled dancefloor. Duchess La Valette, tiny and regal; Roche, grim and disgustingly well turned out in blue velvet; Count de Verdon, heavily powdered and shooting glances at Ves the same way the commander was shooting glances to a side-door; Shani, smelling of cloves and wine, eyes scrunched with laughter as Thaler kept up a flow of abuse regarding half the men and women in the room.

Ves had received a neat package earlier in the day containing best regards from the Count, along with profoundest joy that she would be able to make the ball and a selection of small shiny items that she may perhaps enjoy wearing to it. Another note on top of the package in Roche’s writing added that she better bloody put them on and not cause offense. Despite that, she’d kept her blue stripes necklace proudly on display beneath the mother-of-pearl lilies and the silver beads.

Seeing the Count stand up and make towards her, Ves quickly grabbed Shani’s elbow and looked meaningfully towards the dancefloor. Shani understood, and giggled her way away from the table as Thaler voiced his disapproval of ‘ _going to join in with those stupid cocksuckers…’_

‘Is it comfortable enough?’ Shani asked on the floor, pulling Ves’ arms gently closer with her gloved ones as they joined the end of the aisle of dancers.

‘As long as we go gently. Just keep me away from de Verdon, I do not want to dance with him until I have to.’

‘I can manage that.’

They went gently for the next few songs, Ves relying on Shani’s knowledge of the moves required and consenting to be lead rather than try to mimic the other dancers next to them. The medic was graceful, and careful, and so coordinated that Ves only stood on her slippered feet a small handful of times.

‘I never imagined I’d see you dressed up’

‘I never imagined I’d see you without your kitbag, and I’m still armed.’

‘I may need my bag after all then.’

Eventually the minstrels picked up the tempo and the dances suddenly started to involve a lot more spinning. After the first Ves had to admit defeat and return to the edges of the room, making sure to hold her ribs lest the Count think that it was her partner she had tired of. The young man swept in and took Shani’s hand, doubtless to try and earn himself an endorsement.

Roche threw himself down on the seat next to her where she lurked beneath the tapestries and made to clap her hard on the back before catching himself.

‘I know.’ She responded. ‘I’ll ask him for one dance later in the evening. Let me have some peace from him for now.’

‘What? Oh. Yes, see that you do.’

Surprised, Ves turned to face the commander, who was giving her that intense, dark-eyed, sincere conversation look that she hated. ‘You have something else to say?’

Roche just rolled his eyes and filled her goblet, then his own. They sat in silence for a moment, taking in the room.

‘What are you doing, Ves?’ He rasped at her eventually. He was leant forward, knees spread and goblet clasped in both hands resting across his lap.

‘What am I doing?’

‘Here. Vizima. Sitting in this blasted palace all day.’

A cold feeling started in the pit of Ves’s stomach and she gripped her drink. ‘What do you mean? I serve Temeria.’

‘And you always will. But we’re at peace now, Ves. More than either of us have known…’ It was often hard to tell when the commander was a few drinks under, his self-control rarely faltering, but Ves was sure that they wouldn’t be having this conversation sober, and even then she struggled to look him in the eye.

‘Ves.’ His voice was hard, and she had no choice but to look up at him. ‘Your place is by my side, always will be. My role is here though, sorting out all…’ he gestured at the room ‘…this shit.’ The knot in Ves’ stomach unwound slightly, and she didn’t feel quite so cold. ‘I’d not send you away under any circumstances…Melitele’s tits, you given me enough reason to…and…’ Roche made a noise in the back of his throat that was familiar to Ves as an indication that not sufficient drink had been had yet for this level of emotional communication. ‘…I want this to be your home, but you’re not a housepet, and that’s what they’ll have you as here. I’ll give you the best work I can, but if there’s ever more out there, anything you ever want to pursue…and return home to us…I…you’re wasted on court life, Ves. Royally.’

Ves wasn’t sure what to say, though she felt her face burning with the profound relief of having not been dismissed from her position. There wasn’t much she _could_ say that wouldn’t be hideously uncomfortable for the both of them, so:

‘Why now, all of a sudden?’

Roche was in control, but not in control enough to stop his eyes flicking to the young woman currently keeping the Count de Verdon occupied.

Fuck that, he was exactly that in control and he wanted her to get the message. She nodded stiffly and took a deep drink. With the goblet drained, she stood, gripped Roche’s shoulder, hard, and a little too long, then made back to the tables for more drink.

Shani could only be asked to keep the Count away for so long, and so Ves dutifully placed her feet to music, eyes watching keenly over the man’s silk-clad shoulder at the shock of white hair that slunk in through the side-door Roche had been eyeing and sidled up to the commander. She took the Count’s hands in hers to keep them away from her stinging ribs and boldly chatted away about the pleasures of the festival until it was acceptable to sit down again.

‘-fucking marvellous.’ Thaler was saying to Shani when she rejoined them. ‘-best bloody spirits I ‘ever ‘ad – you’re to bring me back a few bottles…you’ll ploughin’ love it, girl…’ He quietened down when Ves plonked herself down beside them and set to stuffing a pipe and looking meaningfully over at the witcher and the commander, smirking around his drink.

There was a slow, lilting waltzstep from the minstrel gallery, and steadily a lute joined in, and then a fiddle. Sweet and frilled music, hardly the sort Ves was used to. But Shani’s eyes were shining, her cheeks bright from contentment and drink, eyes half lidded.

‘Ahhhhh, I know this one. They used to play it when I was growing up…’

‘Pffff.’ No amount of sentimentality seemed to rival the importance of Thaler’s pipe, and he waved a hand at the two women. ‘You two go up, you must be all fine by now, right Ves? Not soft yet?’

Ves nodded in response to Shani’s questioning gaze, a little warm in the face herself now, and held out her arms to take the other woman’s as they rose to their feet, though Shani knew not to put any weight on her.

It wasn’t raw or jolly enough to be music for Ves, but the beat was steady and swaying, and the roughness of the lace on the other woman’s arms felt good beneath hers as the redhead led her slowly in circles around the floor amongst the other dancers, so gently and so soothingly that she felt her eyelids begin to droop, and breathed in the smell of cloves, sweat, expensive fabric and clean hair. She’d never been good at dancing a day in her life but let Shani steer her about the floor and felt their hips sway in tandem, hers in tight leggings beneath her tunic and Shani’s beneath deep copper-brown silk.

She closed her eyes, sleepy from all of it – the pain, the drink, the talk with Roche, the heady smell of Shani’s perfume – and when she cracked them open again, lids sticky with kohl, she saw the other’s cheeks close to hers, close enough to see each freckle, see her pert top lip red with wine, and bright gaze locked dead on hers.

The waltz went on for what felt like hours, and when the final quavering note had petered into silence and been replaced by the start of a march, Shani gripped Ves’s forearms gently in her gloved hands and cocked her head at her.

‘You’re half asleep. Come, I’m tired too, we should change your bandages before you keel over.’

They slipped out, through the crisp, cold, lantern-lit gardens and into the winding corridors, fingers interlaced, not speaking, until they reached Ves’ rooms, and the blonde clumsily lit candles, threw logs onto what remained of the afternoon’s fire.

In the dim light, Shani’s hair seemed to glow, the perfect picture of autumn with the candlelight shining orange on her chest, where the deep brown silk of her dress bunched, and green beads hung about her collarbone. Ves put both hands on her waist, felt the fabric sliding beneath them, the slight dips and raises of the woman’s spine beneath, and pressed her lips into hers. She was warm, and sweet, and so, so soft, leaning forward into the kiss, her fringe tickling Ves’s forehead as she brought her own arms up and around her shoulders. Ves ran her hands down the back of the dress, down to her hips and felt the dimple where the woman’s stockings pinched into her thighs, the slide of extra fabric where ribbons held them up. Shani swayed her hips, slowly, to whatever music still played inside her head, and Ves ran her tongue along her bottom lip, tasting the wine that lingered there.

Shani pulled back, eyes glowing and lips a little swollen.

‘Ah, bandages first…make sure you’re sorted…’

Ves tried to say that that was quite alright, she could manage one night, but Shani pulled her arms back, slowly, down her shoulders, then her chest, and then knelt to the cloths and the jar of salve that she had taken to leaving by the fireplace.

Seeing that Shani’s professionalism was not to be argued with, Ves unbuttoned her tunic, being sure to make a show of showing Shani the exact same thing she’d seen nearly every night that week, and went to sit on the bed untying her bandages while the medic peeled her evening gloves off and came to sit beside her.

If having salve put on your wounds felt this good every time, Ves doubted she’d have a single scar on her body. Slim fingers traced oh so lightly down her ribs, and ghosted down her back and her upper arms, rubbing small, gentle circles into the skin there. She pressed lightly either side of her spine, and against her neck, and dragged her fingers slowly down, making Ves’s muscles go to jelly and head loll back, one dry hand carding the back of her hair while the other continued on her back. By the time Shani redressed the wound, she was sure she would have fallen straight asleep if not for the insistent throbbing between her legs.

Shani rose, rucked her skirts up to her hips and swivelled around to Ves’s front to straddle her where she knelt. Grinning and eager, Ves pulled the garment the rest of the way off, struggling a little with the row of tiny buttons down the back, and lent back on her heels for a moment to enjoy the sight. No sorceress this girl, and beneath the fine outfit she had only plain cotton underthings, white and soft.

She watched with hands on the other woman’s hips as Shani removed her camisole. Then, not wanting to wait any longer, she bent forward and licked a wide circle around one nipple, spiralling in closer and closer before taking it in her mouth and sucking gently, calloused left hand cupping and caressing the other breast. Red flushes started to blossom on the woman’s chest beneath her mouth and the smell of arousal joined that of woodsmoke and perfume.

Shani’s hands began to wander too as Ves continued to dip her head over her chest, sucking and flicking against her nipples with her tongue until each was slippery enough to be massaged by her fingers while her mouth was busy with the other. Shani’s hands slid down the sides of Ves’s muscled back, going as far as the dimples above her waistband before she had to scoot her hips forward across her legginged lap in order to reach below and knead the soft flesh there. Ves moaned softly against Shani’s chest as the movement brought their groynes closer and almost bucked up, but restrained herself, feeling the wetness pooling in her own undergarments, warm beneath too-tight clothing.

The seam rubbed against her clit and she shifted her weight to get some friction, right hand plunging into the back of Shani’s cotton underthings and tugging. Shani knelt upright for a moment to allow Ves to drag them as low as her knees, then scrambled to pull them the rest of the way off. Ves took the opportunity to swing her legs over the side of the bed and wriggle her own clothes off as fast as she could without hurting her ribs, giving up on unlacing her boots and leaving her leggings and soaked knickers pooled around them as she lifted herself back on top of the mattress with her arms to gently push Shani down against the pillows and prop herself up over her.

The stockings had stayed on, red ribbons bright against the white skin and whiter material. Ves shuffled backwards on the quilt so that her face was level with them and nuzzled gently with parted mouth at the place where the soft thighs met the fabric. Hands gripping Shani’s waist, thumbs stroking the dip around her pelvis, she moved from one leg to the other, working each thigh with her mouth from the outside inwards, nipping gently at the fabric and planting kisses on the warm skin.

The smell of Shani’s arousal got stronger, as did the gasps and low moans coming from the pillows and Ves fought the urge to lend herself a hand as she went. She wasn’t about to fumble this. She took her time reaching the sensitive inside of Shani’s legs and then slowly licked and sucked her way up. She stopped just short of her target for a moment, taking in the freckles on the redheads hips while she waited for Shani to groan in frustration before continuing. She nudged her thighs apart with her forehead and dipped her head down further to push her tongue into the wet heat there.

She moved her tongue in and out, hands kneading the backs of Shani’s thighs, before licking her way oh so slowly up to swirl her tongue around her clit before pressing her lips down and sucking ever so slightly. She pulled a hand up from beneath her, suppressing a grunt of pain as she adjusted herself, and pressed one finger gently into the redhead, then two, curled them inside and stroked slow and hard, rubbing small circles against up against her walls until a whimper from Shani told her she’d found the spot. She set to work in earnest then, flicking her tongue rhythmically against Shani’s clit and pressing strong and hard into that spot inside her.

She was almost at the limit of her own self-control by then and rutted against the quilt in search of friction while frantically palming the flesh of a freckled buttock with her free hand. She stopped flicking and sucked until Shani’s legs began to shake around her head, the fabric of the stockings rustling her hair, and started back on flicking her clit at its most sensitive point once the redhead started to cry out. Then it was only another few hard thrusts of her fingers and those surprisingly strong thighs were clamping around her head as Shani bucked up into her mouth, crying out as her hips rolled and Ves bobbed her head with the motion before Shani let out a long breath and lay back, panting.

Ves pushed herself upright and crawled up the bed to lie on her side next to the other woman, stroking her stickiness down her stomach and leaning in to kiss her, her chin wet with cum and saliva. Shani sighed and kissed back, the smell of her strong in both their noses, and reached down to rub between Ves’s legs, eliciting a gasp. Ves was a lot closer than she would care admit and bucked into the touch, grinding against Shani’s palm and allowing slender fingers slip into her.

Shani grabbed the back of her hair and pulled her deeper into the kiss, fingers doing even nicer things inside her than they had on her back and slick thumb rubbing circles on her clit. Ves threw one leg over Shani’s and pressed her crotch onto her thigh, trapping Shani’s hand between Ves’s cunt and her leg, the cotton providing wonderful friction as she crushed their mouths together. Impatient now that she’d brought the other woman off, she rubbed against Shani at the pace she knew worked, grinding hard and fast against the padded fingers and the rough fabric. She came with a growling moan into the redheads mouth, shuddering against her and clenching hard around her fingers that Shani moaned loudly and tilted her head back.

‘Good?’ Shani asked, once they pulled their faces apart.

‘Yeah.’ Ves panted. ‘Good. Good?’

‘Good.’ Shani grinned, and lazily played with a tuft of blonde hair.

‘You want…?’ Ves grinned back and ran her fingers down to lie in the soft orange hair between Shani’s legs.

‘No…no, I’m too drunk, one’s good.’ Shani kissed her tattooed shoulder.

They lay inert, still wrapped around one another until the stickiness began to cool on them and Ves rose stiffly to throw more wood on the fire and heat water to wash themselves off.

* * *

‘You treat all your patients this way?’ Ves joked once they were clean, sat on top of her dresser and enjoying the clay pipe she preferred to indulge in after such activities, blowing blue smoke out of the open window. The other girl sat wrapped in the quilt against the cool autumn air.

‘Hardly.’ But she was smiling.

‘I guess I shouldn’t hold out for such treatment every night then.’

Shani didn’t reply, and, sensing change, Ves turned around. Shani was sat in shadow, the fire and blocks of moonlight the only light in the room. Even so, she could tell the mood had changed.

‘…Shani? Or…’ Ves felt her heart sink and kicked herself for it. ‘…or, how long will you stay now that the festival is over?’

‘Until tomorrow…until lunchtime…I…sorry Ves, I’m sorry. It was going to be longer – I wanted it to be longer, but, well, I’m sailing to Skellige in a week’s time, I have to get to Novigrad by then.’

The drunk warmth in Ves’s stomach turned sour, and she found she didn’t much fancy the pipe anymore as she realised.

‘Ah. What Thaler was talking about…’

‘Yes…I’m doing some research on the islands…there is a high mortality rate in new-borns…it may be linked to their religion, and birthing customs…it’s possible the children’s sickness is due to poor hygiene in cutting the…I’m sorry, it’s not a fun topic.’

‘No.’ Ves answered crisply, tapping her pipe out onto the windowsill.

‘I was due to leave later, but weather is coming in, and the ship’s captain has refused to sail any later. Word came through this morning.’

Ves was quiet, the pipe out and discarded on the dresser, but the window still open and blowing cold air in.

‘I hoped I would see you again once I return. Which I will. Before next summer.’

Which should have been fine. Should have been a welcome offer. A warm and inviting lover to pass in and out of her life as was convenient. But it wasn’t, and Ves didn’t care to know why it wasn’t, except that the alcohol in her system was making her dour and nauseous, and that she was angry with the girl sat on her bed draped in her blanket.

‘You ought to take your things then. I think I can heal fine on my own by now.’ She heard the words come out of her mouth and hated it. She sounded like a scorned lady bickering with her escort in the corner of one of Foltest’s banquets and she detested it.

But that wasn’t enough to make her ask Shani to stop as the stricken women stumbled in the dim room to gather her kit and fumble her dirtied clothes back on, head hung and clumsy.

Ves didn’t step down from the dresser until the door clicked shut, and when she did, she lay on her back beneath the quilt, head spinning from the drink and as wide awake as if she had starved for days.

* * *

She slept, eventually, or must have done because it was morning and her head hurt and the drool on her pillow stank of sour booze. Well, she supposed, in absence of anything to do or care to think about beside immediate action, she probably wasn’t excused from duties anymore, so she should at least make herself presentable and go to find the commander.

So, she stood, washed herself with the same cloth as the night before, made the bed, drank her tea and tidied away her evening clothes for another year.

Roche would be up by this time, witcher or no witcher, and she really ought to show that she was on the mend and turn up in good time. She unfolded her thick striped leggings and jacket, unused since the day of the hunt, and dressed for returning to her duties. She stood, nauseous and hesitant, teeth grinding for reasons she didn’t fully understand. She noticed the clay pipe, spilling ash on top of the dresser, and took it to the mantelpiece to tidy away. There, in her little stash box, engraved with flowers and rowan berries, she discovered the shining black mug, hidden away so that it wouldn’t be seen until finished. Her stomach clenched, and she grit her teeth, picked up her crossbow, and flung open the bedroom door.

Only, she only made it six paces down the corridor before, rather than continuing to the courtyard, she grabbed for the bellpull used to summon servants and almost entirely ignored by her the rest of the time and pulled hard.

A maid came scuttling around the corner before she’d fully processed what she was doing and she turned to the flustered young woman, jutting her chin and demanding ‘Summon the medic from the palace. The young redhaired scholar. She’s needed urgently, it’s an emergency.’

Then, guided by whatever higher power her hangover seemed to have assumed, she turned on her heel without another word to the girl and marched back into her room where she sat stonily on the edge of her bed, fingers laced through the mug’s handle between her legs as she leant forward on her knees, staring at the floorboards.

Shani didn’t wait for an answer to her knock before hurrying into the room, flustered, hair messy and medical bag under one arm.

‘Ves?? Ves, what happened?? They told me something had happened, are you well? Is somebody hurt?’

Ves wasn’t sure how to answer and just twitched the mug in her hands. It wasn’t a work of art, by any means. Carving never had been a skill of hers. But the sunlight shone on the glossy horn, and it would at least hold a hot drink without leaking, or cracking.

‘I made this. Wyvern horn…thought you could do with it…’ Her throat was dry and her voice came out cracked. ‘If you’re travelling. ‘Specially at sea…clay mugs smash easy…this won’t.’

She raised her eyes to meet Shani’s, shamefaced and grim, and held out the item. Shani looked shocked, then happy, then desperately sad, and then suddenly in control and back in caring mode, all in the space of a second. She sat down next to Ves and took the mug from her hands.

‘It’s beautiful.’

Ves nodded. ‘I’m sorry. For last night. I overreacted.’

‘I can forget about it, if you like.’ Shani turned the mug over in her hands, admiring the whorls and patterns in the horn. ‘And I suppose this means I can have my bonesaw back now?’

‘It’s beneath the bed.’ Ves couldn’t help but smile a bit at that. It gave her the strength to sit a little straighter and alleviated some of the awkwardness between them.

‘No emergency then?’ Shani asked once she’d retrieved the saw, already knowing the answer.

‘No. No emergency.’

‘Hm.’ Shani smiled, and moved a little closer for them to sit together in silence.

‘Are you leaving the city this afternoon?’

‘More like this evening now. My preparations were interrupted a little.’

‘Sorry about that.’

‘Well worth it.’

‘I’ll let you continue then.’ Ves stood, and let her hand linger lightly on the small of Shani’s back as she did the same.

Shani took the saw, the mug, and her bag and turned back at the door. She hesitated, then walked back to the bed, closing the distance between them.

‘Ves.’

Ves smiled at her and grasped her hand. ‘Come and see me when you’re back.’

‘I will.’ Shani muttered quickly, face turned to the floor. ‘But, ah, Ves. See. Skellige is a wild, untamed place. Monsters are rife…sirens, harpies…and many clans are still not friendly to outcomers, especially scholars!’ Ves looked at her, eyebrows drawing together. ‘And there are many more wolves and bears than on the mainland and…well…I think I could benefit from some heroic company.’ She raised her eyes to meet Ves’s and smiled nervously.

Something. Perhaps the hangover, or perhaps whatever dreaded thing it was that had made feel so awful in the first place, made her stomach flutter, and she knew she was grinning.

She walked to the mantelpiece, picked up her tin mug, and chucked it into a knapsack.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! This is my first (finished) fic in a long time so let me know what you think 😊 
> 
> The Day of the Lilies and associated frippery are an idea from another fic I’m writing, where Temeria celebrates becoming a vassal state.
> 
> So also I have never written a proper lesbian sex scene before and I wasn’t planning to do it here either but apparently that’s what these guys did so I am so sorry for that awkwardness there.
> 
> Also re. 'never had to take orders from a woman in her life', I'm still partway through TW2, so maybe she gets orders from Sile or Triss or someone and I don't know it yet, so sorry if that is the case :) Also I have only encountered Shani in TW3 so far so I’m hoping I’ve got her character okay-ish.


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